French former hostage ready to go back to the front line

"Of course you have to go to Afghanistan or
to Syria," said French TV reporter Hervé Ghesquière, who was held
hostage for 547 days in Afghanistan together with his cameraman, Stéphane
Taponier, between December 2010 and June 2011.

However, he does not hesitate one micro-second
when asked whether journalists should take risks to get the story. "I am not suicidal,"
he said, "but if
you are a journalist, you have to go. The 'zero risk' does not exist. The
real question is how you can properly assess the dangers that you will
inevitably have to confront."

In the months since his release, Hervé
Ghesquière, a seasoned reporter for the French public TV channel France 3 and a
veteran of many wars, has been drawing and sharing the lessons from his abduction
and captivity. On Monday, he was a keynote speaker at a conference
organized at the Louvain-la-Neuve University (UCL) by Les Voies de la Liberté,
an association promoting freedom of expression and human rights on the campus,
and a guest of the University Radio.

He still resents the wild accusations that
were thrown at him and his colleague by some top French officials who
questioned the two journalists' professionalism and criticized their
"imprudence." "Contrary to what some officials claimed, we never intended to
meet with the Taliban. When we started on our ill-fated trip outside the French
base in the Kapisa region we just wanted to report on how common people lived
in an area under French army control. We wanted to assess on the ground the
effectiveness of the 'Afghanization' of the police and military forces,"
Ghesquière said.

"But why did you go without army
protection?" a journalism student asked Ghesquière. "Because we knew that no one would talk to us
honestly in the presence of French or Afghan soldiers." he answered. "The
French military are communicating on the war. They are determined to control
how the story of the Afghan operation is being told. Very few journalists are
allowed to embed with military units. They keep them inside the bases. Because
they know that the mission has not been accomplished."

Ghesquière repeatedly refuted any
accusation of a lack of professionalism. France Télévisions, he insisted, never
sends journalists on dangerous assignments without a serious assessment of the
risks involved. "One of our colleagues who wanted to interview the Taliban spent
one year preparing his reportage. He made sure that he would be under the protection
of a Taliban leader who would vouch for his safety. But even with these precautions
it was a close call for him because some Taliban, despite the pledge, argued
that he should be detained and exchanged for a ransom," he said.

"In any case in Afghanistan, there is
always a risk even in areas allegedly under the control of the pro-Kabul
forces. The Afghan army is undermined by informers who report to the Taliban.
This is what happened to Stéphane and me. When we crossed an Afghan army
checkpoint someone alerted a Taliban leader that we were coming."

During his months in captivity, often in
solitary confinement, Ghesquière developed a disciplined routine to avoid falling
into depression. "It was like a military schedule. I dutifully respected the
day and night cycles, I exercised regularly despite the exiguity of my cell,
and I listened to the BBC broadcasts which helped me structure my day."

Despite these very bad moments Ghesquière
is ready to go back to the front lines, and he has advice for aspiring war
correspondents. "Prepare yourself well. When I first went into a war, in the Balkans,
I tended to rely too much on in-the-field journalism without giving enough
attention to the complex background of the story. Now I devote much more time
trying to understand the issue behind the story. I invest much more in collecting
and digesting documentation. And thanks to that preparatory process I feel that
I can much more quickly get to the essence of the story."

Between conferences and his normal TV work,
Ghesquière is writing a book on his 18 months in the Taliban's jails. It is
scheduled for release in early September and, he said, it will go beyond telling
the story of this painful experience to reflect more broadly on the state of
journalism and the existential challenges it faces in an era dominated by the determination
of news makers -- be they government, military, sports, or private companies -- to frame and control the story.

CPJ Europe Representative Marthoz is a Belgian journalist and longtime press freedom and human rights activist. He teaches international journalism at the Université catholique de Louvain and is a columnist for the Belgian daily Le Soir.